Animation &Art Art 16 Aug 2007 07:14 am
Gianluigi Toccafondo
– I thnk I may have been asleep at the wheel.
While going through my regular routine of blog reading Hans Bacher introduced me to Gianluigi Toccafondo on the Animation Treasures site. How could I have not noticed Toccafondo‘s work before?
Hans guided me to the Ottawa Animation Festival site as I started my search to find out who he is. I didn’t make it to Ottawa in 2004, but apparently there was a retro-spective there for Toccafondo. Obviously, the Italian filmmaker had done enough work to merit a retrospective, and I hadn’t heard of him before yesterday! How astute of Chris Robinson to have scheduled a retrospective – 3 years ago.
I was soon led to the AWN/Acme Filmworks site. He’s part of their group of directors and has a small showreel posted there. For the record, I learned that he was born in San Marino, Italy, on March 6, 1965. He studied at the Istituto d’Arte di Urbino: film animation department, graduating in 1985. He lives and works in Milan. He’s had various exhibitions in Milan and Paris.
Elwood Smith‘s site, Greenmonkey, brought me to a 16 minute short by Toccafondo called La Piccola Russia. This can be found on line at the Arte TV site.
Continuing the search, on line, I found
La Pista and
La Coda.
I’ve linked to them both and hope you’ll take the time to view them.
Not only are they beautiful films, but the use of music within all is excellent. The composer, Mario Mariano, has his own home page.
The work looks as though it uses live-action film as a jumping off point to distort, reconstruct and recreate the images depicted. The blend of film and music is tight and exciting. Every frame I’ve seen looks like a oil-painted masterwork. Lucian Freud meets Francis Bacon. As Hans Bacher stated on his site, I haven’t located a dvd of Gianluigi Toccafondo‘s work, but I’ll keep looking.
Gianluigi Toccafondo is an artist who happens to use animation as his medium, and I’m thankful to Hans Bacher for waking me up to this work. Isn’t that what great sites do? They link you to great art.
on 16 Aug 2007 at 8:38 pm 1.Chris Robinson said …
hmm….I might know someone who has a dvd of Toccafondo’s work…
on 16 Aug 2007 at 9:23 pm 2.hans bacher said …
please let us know where to find it. thank you very much
on 17 Aug 2007 at 10:55 am 3.Peggi Habets Studio said …
There are some exerpts of his stuff on youtube: http://youtube.com/results?search_query=Gianluigi+Toccafondo
Peggi
on 13 Apr 2008 at 4:44 am 4.Luc Forest said …
I am desparetly searching a DVD of Toccafondo’s work too… Please, Chris Robinson, let us know if you have some information ! Thanks !
on 18 Apr 2008 at 6:10 pm 5.Bianca Edmonds said …
I’d love to know of a Toccafondo dvd too– I haven’t found one yet, but have found two books/art catalogs by Toccafondo, his version of Pinocchio (the book is a first addition for $45 plus $5 postage) and an exhibition catalog of La Piccola Russia ($52.75 plus postage). The seller is fagong. So… where’s this dvd being spoken of?
on 26 Jun 2008 at 1:37 pm 6.Miki said …
Where did you get these pictures?
Are they pictures by Toccafondo?
I can’t get much Information in Japan !
on 05 Jul 2008 at 1:57 pm 7.Elwood said …
Hi, Michael-
Just found this link. Sorry I missed it when you posted it. I agree with your assessment: “Every frame I’ve seen looks like a oil-painted masterwork. Lucian Freud meets Francis Bacon”, though I might say it’s Francis Bacon meets a more linear artist like Jose Luis Cuevas. No matter, I believe Toccafondo to be one of the most original moviemakers out there. La Piccola Russia, which I’ve watched dozens of times, is a perfect film in my estimation. The art is as good as it gets, the music sublime and the story is an amazing narrative which is captivating even as it leaves the viewer wondering what the hell is going on. I think it’s one of the reasons I love it so much–the thing is so haunting, so dark and beautiful that it draws you in, but the story is alike a dream (nightmare?) that can’t ever be fully explained or understood. That’s okay with me, I keep coming back, finding fresh nuances every time.